The disclosure herein relates to a semiconductor package, and more particularly to a semiconductor package that includes a spiral inductor that is used to (i) adjust the package's impedance, or (ii) compensate for excess capacitance of the semiconductor device in the package.
Integrated circuit (IC) packages are enclosures that house one or more semiconductor devices, otherwise known as IC dies. An IC die is typically a single square or rectangular piece of semiconductor material in which various microelectronic circuits have been formed. An IC package serves to both protect the IC die contained therein from physical and environmental damage and physically and electrically connect the IC die to a printed circuit board (PCB).
Recently, multi-layered packages have been introduced. The overall footprints of the interconnect topologies of these multi-layer packages have been steadily decreasing to meet demands for smaller overall package form factors. This reduction has led to low inductances in the overall signal path of the package, which, in turn, leads to a low impedance in the overall signal path of the package. This low impedance in the overall signal path may cause undesirable impedance mismatches with the IC dies in the packages and with the PCBs to which the packages are connected. These problems are exacerbated in systems having high signaling speeds, such as speeds on the order of multiple gigahertz. In these high-speed systems, even a small impedance mismatch may cause severe signaling problems.